I conceived the idea
of climbing to it. I could not sit quietly waiting any longer. So, mounting
Target, I put him up the slope. It was not a steep climb, still it was long
and took considerable time. Before I reached the gray cliff I looked down
over the forest to see the rolling, smoky clouds. We climbed higher and
still higher, till Target reached the cliff and could go no farther.
Leaping off, I tied him securely and bent my efforts to getting around on
top of the cliff. If I had known what a climb it was I should not have
attempted it, but I could not back out with the summit looming over me. It
ran up to a ragged crag. Hot, exhausted, and out of breath, I at last got
there.
As I looked I shouted in surprise. It seemed that the whole of Penetier was
under my feet. The green slope disappeared in murky clouds of smoke. There
were great pillars and huge banks of yellow and long streaks of black, and
here and there, underneath, moving splashes of red. The thing did not stay
still one instant. It changed so that I could not tell what it did look
like. Them were life and movement in it, and something terribly sinister. I
tried to calculate how far distant the fire was and how fast it was coming,
but that, in my state of mind, I could not do. The whole sweep of forest
below me was burning.
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